


Home Is Where The Hostages Are

by Jinxter



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Wynonna Earp Is Not Oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21934114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxter/pseuds/Jinxter
Summary: A date, a text message, and a misunderstanding.Waverly watches the redhead and her mind runs a million miles an hour. All the times Nicole has indulged Wynonna's crazy adventures. The times she's been the one to bring her sister home, fall-down drunk, helped Waverly tuck her into bed. Spending her birthday with them at the homestead eating the awful cake that Wynonna tried to bake before Wynonna actually threw it out the back door, and Nicole helping Waverly make a second, more edible cake for them to eat instead. She thinks about Nicole's message to Wynonna.Bailed on the date. I'm an idiot. Can you come over?Oh.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 19
Kudos: 211





	1. Date Night

**Author's Note:**

> It's Christmas and I'm drinking and writing and not really editing and definitely not beta-ing so I hope you enjoy anyway... ;)

"Waverly?"

"Hey."

"Come in, come in, out of the cold." Waverly steps in and Nicole closes the door behind her. Waverly hesitates on moving inside the cosy house, which means when Nicole turns around they're standing awkwardly close. The redhead backs up a little. "What are you doing here?"

Waverly holds up Wynonna's phone, the same model as her own but more scuffed around the edges. The beginning of Nicole's own text message visible on the screen. _Bailed on the date. I'm an idiot. Can you come over?_ "Wynonna took my phone by accident and left hers at home, and I don't know her passcode to unlock it, but I saw the summary of your message and thought I'd come and see you. Make sure you're okay."

Nicole groans. "Oh my god, I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

"No, I was being dramatic and I worried you and made you come all this way. I'm so sorry."

"You didn't make me."

Nicole smiles. "No, but you're the type of sweet, kindhearted person who would always go a million miles out of her way for anyone."

Waverly blushes. "Not for just anyone."

Nicole raises her eyebrow.

"Well, okay, most people. I'd just rather be safe than sorry. I'd never forgive myself if I had the opportunity to be here for you when you needed me and I chose to ignore it."

"Waves, I love you but you know you don't have to be everything to everyone, right?"

Waverly swallows and doesn't answer. 

Nicole realises what she said and the tiniest whimper escapes. She covers it by clearing her throat and gestures to the living room. "But you're here now, so come in. Can I make you a tea? Hot chocolate?"

Waverly allows herself to be guided into the larger room and then follows Nicole to the adjoining kitchen. "Tea would be fine, unless you have non-dairy milk?"

"Is this ok?" With a grin, Nicole emerges from the pantry with a UHT carton of soy milk that she'd decided to buy a few weeks ago just on the off-chance she might need it someday, even though Waverly is the only person she knows who doesn't drink dairy and she had never been to her house before. Still, she was glad for the decision now. 

"Perfect, thank you!" Waverly shrugs out of her long puffer coat and disappears for a moment to hang it on the hook by the door.

Nicole fills the kettle and busies herself with cocoa and sugar.

"So, your date didn't go so well?"

Nicole fumbles the cocoa jar and nearly drops it, still managing to get a puff of brown powder over her hand and forearm. "Shit."

"Is that an exclamation, or was the date that bad?" Waverly reaches for the dishcloth to wipe the benchtop while Nicole rinses her hand under the tap.

"Both?" She scrunches her face up and dries her hand on a tea towel hanging from the oven door. "No, that's not fair. The date was fine. I can't complain. I just wasn't..." Waverly steps closer, holding eye contact that made Nicole's heart rate increase, waiting for her to finish her answer before rinsing the cloth. "It didn't feel right."

"How so?"

Nicole wants to squirm, worried the alcohol in her system will reveal too many truths, and yet, part of her never wants to stop talking with the younger brunette. "She was nice, we got along well, we have a fair bit in common."

"But?"

"But it didn't feel right."

"You've said that."

"To see her again."

"Why?"

Nicole pinches the bridge of her nose and thanks heaven for the kettle reaching boiling and giving her a momentary distraction to fix the drinks. She stirs them both and slides Waverly's along the counter to her.

"So?"

"You're like a dog with a bone, aren't you," Nicole chuckles.

Waverly's shoulders slump a little though, not taking the comment as the joke Nicole had intended. "Sorry. Sorry, Nicole. I'm prying."

"No, it's fine."

"No, I know we're not... we're not... you wanted to see Wynonna, not me."

"Waverly--"

"It's okay, I know we're... we're not friends like that."

"Waverly, that's not it. I'm just..." She takes a breath. "I'm glad you're here. I am. It's just a little awkward, I've had a few drinks and I don't know how to be honest with you without saying too much."

The brunette looks at her quizzically.

Nicole widens her eyes. "Kinda like that."

Waverly laughs softly, her eyes warming again from their previous sadness. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. We don't even have to talk about it if you don't want to."

They take their drinks out into the living room, Nicole sits in the corner of her sofa while Waverly places her drink on the coffee table and sits in the middle seat, turning her back to Nicole to pat the snoozing cat at the opposite end. 

"Oh hello, gorgeous. What a big girl!"

"Part Maine Coon, apparently, so she's perfect for this weather."

"Aren't you such a sweetheart," Waverly coos as Calamity Jane stretches, yawns, and stands up. 

"I don't know about that, she can be a bit temperamental about who she--" Nicole stops mid-sentence as her cat stretches again in downward facing, well, downward facing cat, then steps up with her two front paws onto Waverly's jean-clad thigh and reaching her head up to sniff her chin, heatbutting the girl with a smooge as she lowers her head to the ginger cat. "I take it back, apparently you're her new favourite person."

Waverly beams. "I have a way with animals."

"As well."

"Huh?" Waverly frowns, Calamity now fully on her lap and standing with her paws on Waverly's chest to move in for another headbutt. 

"As well as people. People love you too."

Waverly remembers Nicole's off-handed comment earlier and blushes again. "It's all in the smile and wave."

"You have a very warm and open aura."

"You didn't strike me as the type to be into auras."

Nicole scrunches her face a little which makes Waverly smile harder. "Well not like, I don't see colours or anything, but like..." she tried to think for a moment but only softens with Waverly looking at her with those hazel eyes, "it feels really good to be around you."

Waverly holds her gaze until Calamity stands on a boob and she flinches, gently moving the cat's substantial weight back to her lap. She reaches over the cat but isn't quite able to reach her hot chocolate, but Nicole is onto it and hands it to her, their fingers brushing as the cup is passed between them. 

"Thank you."

Nicole smiles. They sit in companionable silence for a few moments, enjoying their drinks and listening the the low rumble of Calamity's contented purr.

"I'm glad you came to be a deputy here," Waverly says after a while. "The Sheriff needed someone who has a good feel for people. Lonnie tries is best and Jamie is very... by the book, but it's nice that you're there now too."

"Winging it on hunches? That's what you're looking for in a deputy?"

Waverly rolls her eyes. "You really care about people, you read people and situations really well, and you trust your instincts. Don't underestimate yourself, that's a rare and valuable trait."

"Thank you."

"And it's why I have faith that if you bailed on your date tonight because it didn't feel right, because you went with your gut, then you made the right decision."

Nicole nods slowly and sits in silence, thinking. They stare at the small fireplace in the corner of the room where glowing embers shine through the small window in the woodburner stove. After a time, she clears her throat a little and speaks. "It wasn't anything about Shae, she was lovely. It just didn't feel right to be on a single date with her let alone actually _dating_ her when my thoughts keep coming back to someone else. It's not fair to her."

In her peripheral vision she sees Waverly's hand still on Calamity's back and her head turn towards her. Nicole takes a sip from her cocoa and doesn't take her eyes off the wood stove.

Waverly watches the redhead and her mind runs a million miles an hour. All the times Nicole has indulged Wynonna's crazy adventures. The times she's been the one to bring her sister home, fall-down drunk, helped Waverly tuck her into bed. Spending her birthday with them at the homestead eating the awful cake that Wynonna tried to bake before Wynonna actually threw it out the back door and Nicole helping Waverly make a second, more edible one for them to eat instead. She thinks about Nicole's message to Wynonna. _Bailed on the date. I'm an idiot. Can you come over?_

_Oh._

"The heart wants what the heart wants," she eventually says quietly.

Nicole sighs heavily. "It can be a bit of a runaway freight train at times."

Waverly smiles. "Only when fully loaded with a lot of love."

Nicole scoffs. "Hearts are idiots. I don't even think she's even into women."

Waverly thinks about the time she walked in on Wynonna and Mercedes before her sister's overseas adventures, and god knows what happened in all those places she went. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Nicole's head whips around to Waverly's. "What?" Waverly just smiles, and she tries to feel it, tries to be excited at the prospect of having Nicole in her life forever as a sister-in-law, but the idea only weighs on her even more than the 18lb cat sitting in her lap. "How do you even know--"

"Oh I have some idea."

Nicole appears to be on the edge of hyperventilating, gulping and using both her hands to hold her drink, lest it spill. "Well, shit."

Waverly smiles, but she feels herself beginning to unravel around the edges. She nudges a very unwilling cat off her lap, and stands. "I should go, though, it's late."

This catches Nicole off guard and she spills a little cocoa on her pyjama pants as she hurries to stand too. "Oh, yeah, okay," she says, slopping her drink onto the coffee table and wiping the wet patch on her knee with her bare hand.

"I'll let you go deal with that," Waverly says, awkwardly, and she bends down to kiss the ginger cat on the top of her head. "Bye, sweet girl."

Nicole leads the way to the door, stopping with her hand on the handle. "Thank you for coming over tonight."

Waverly bites her lip, pauses, then stands on her tippy toes and with one hand on the taller girl's shoulder, kisses her cheek. "Thank you for opening up to me," she says softly. "See you around."

Nicole frowns, confused, but opens the door, and Waverly darts out into the cold, wrapping her coat around her as her boots crunch through the fresh snow.


	2. The Trap

Waverly hears a vehicle approach the homestead at some speed, and she gets up out of her snug position on the sofa with a blanket over her lap to peer out from behind the living room curtain. A flash of ginger catches her eye as Nicole jumps out of the cruiser, slamming the door and running up to the house. Waverly throws the rug onto the seat and opens the front door before the Deputy gets there.

"Nicole, is everything alright?"

The redhead slips a little on the ice sludgy ice on the porch, rights herself, and hangs back. "Uh, hey Waverly." 

"Hey."

"Is Wynonna here? I got a rather urgent message from--"

"Haught-stuff!" Wynonna bellows from the kitchen. "Just in time!"

"What?" Waverly and Nicole look at each other a moment before Nicole slips in the door past the shorter woman and follows the sound of her friend's voice.

Wynonna sticks her head out of the kitchen. "Haught, you got your bottle opener on your keyring?"

Confused, Nicole looks at the keys in her hand and tosses them to her friend. The sound of a bottle opening draws both women down the hall to find Wynonna leaning against the kitchen bench.

"What's going on, Wynonna? You made it sound like there was some kind of emergency here."

"Whoops," Wynonna says, without an ounce of sincerity.

Waverly crosses her arms and frowns at her sister.

"Okay, so you two douchebags," she pushes off the counter and approaches her friend and sister, "have been doing my head in. You," she points to her sister, "won't join us at Shorty's anymore, and you," she points to Nicole, "won't hang out here anymore, and I don't know what happened," she steps between them and backs down the hallway, beer in hand, "but you're gonna sort it out today coz I'm done."

"Wynonna," both women say in unison. 

The older brunette holds up Nicole's keys, and another set in her other hand, before she steps out the door and closes it. Waverly darts for the door but they hear the lock slot into place before she reaches it, and after a single slam of her palm to the wooden frame, Waverly races for the back door, but Nicole hears Wynonna's truck start and pull out of the driveway before the younger sister even comes close to reaching her, though she can see through the window Waverly chase her to the small bridge over the trench before giving up and trudging back to the house.

Waverly makes the cutest growling sound as she stomps the snow off her socked feet and re-enters the house, pulling off the wet socks as she does so. 

"She parent-trapped us," Nicole says with a grimace.

"Yeah. I'm gonna kill her."

Nicole stands awkwardly. "I, umm, I do have a spare key for the patrol car, I can go if you want me to."

Waverly stands up, her bare toes pink from the cold. "No, sorry, I didn't mean it like that." She smiles and shakes her head. "I'm not... I'm not mad you're here or anything."

"Are you sure?" Nicole rubs the back of her neck.

Waverly shakes the remaining tension from her neck and walks closer to the taller woman. "Yes. I'm sorry. You're always welcome here."

"I wasn't sure," Nicole admits, her eyes dropping to the floor, to the cute pink toes, "you kinda kept disappearing every time I came around for a while so I stopped. Did I make you uncomfortable?"

Waverly steps closer again and reaches for Nicole's hands. "No! Oh, Nicole, no. I just thought you could use some space. I didn't mean to make you feel unwelcome." She can almost see the relief lift a weight off Nicole's shoulders and she kicks herself for making the woman feel bad. 

"Oh, ok," Nicole says with a little surprise and confusion. They lock eyes and hold each other's gaze before seemingly automatically falling into a soft smile each. "Hey."

"Hey."

"How are you?"

Waverly bites her lip. "Actually, I'm good."

"Good," Nicole says, squeezing her hands slightly. "I, umm, I heard you broke up with Champ but I didn't know... well I didn't want to say sorry about that because if it was your choice then I presume more..." she shrugs one shoulder "good for you, I guess?"

Waverly smiles. "Yeah, it was my decision, nothing to be sorry about."

"Why?" Nicole blurts, before seeing the hesitation on Waverly's face and attempting to retract. "You don't need to tell me, it's okay."

"Someone wise once taught me to trust what I feel, and if it doesn't feel right to be with someone..."

"Oh," Nicole says, and Waverly's heart warms at the slightly cocky grin that adorns the deputy's face. "Someone wise, huh?"

Waverly rolls her eyes but with amusement. "Wise-ish."

"I'll take it," Nicole chuckles.

"So," Waverly says, "have you told her?"

"Told who? What?" Nicole's brow furrows deeply.

"Wynonna," Waverly says, as though obvious.

"No. Of course not! I mean, tell her what exactly?"

Waverly squeezes Nicole's hands as she finally lets go, and nudges her upper arm with a fist instead. "That you like her."

"I like..." Nicole's expression turns from confusion to wide-eyed recollection of their last real conversation, to absolute mortification. "Oh my god. You think Wynonna was the reason I bailed on the date with Shae?"

It's Waverly's turn to frown. "Yeah." She crosses her arms, doubt beginning to set in. "Was she not?"

Nicole laughs, loudly and joyously. "No, no not at all."

"Oh," Waverly continues to frown, unsure if she's more or less upset at the prospect of Nicole being her sister-in-law for the rest of their lives. If she's not... "Then who...?"

The redhead's wide grin subsides and her whole face softens, fear flickers across her expression as vulnerability sets in. She reaches for Waverly's hand again and clears her throat. "You. It was you."

Waverly allows her hand to be taken and held, and she looks at the long fingers wrapped around her own. She looks up to large, deep brown eyes, and when her voice comes out it's barely more than a squeak. "Me?"

Nicole softens even more. "Yes. It's always been you."

_Oh._

"Oh," Waverly says, or breathes, really, and she looks up at Nicole, drawing her closer. "Thank god," she murmurs, and wraps one hand around the back of Nicole's neck, fingers splayed into the soft hair at her nape, and she equally raises herself up and pulls Nicole's lips to her own.

The kiss lingers, long, firm, and chaste, and they both smile into it as Nicole's arms wrap around the small of Waverly's back and Waverly's other arm joins her other over the taller woman's shoulders, and the next thing she knows Nicole has lifted her up of the ground momentarily. Her utility belt gets in the way of Waverly wrapping her legs around her waist and they take the opportunity to catch their breath. 

"Me," Waverly says with a smile.

Nicole grins. "You. Always you."

\-----

It's dark when Wynonna returns to the homestead. There's little smoke from the chimney anymore and only light from the living room, but both the jeep and the cruiser are still in the driveway. 

She opens the front door and immediately looks in the living room, which is a little surprisingly empty. "Babygirl?" She says, quietly, almost expecting an ambush from her little sister for her bold move. "Haught?"

There's only silence, and only darkness in the rest of the house, and Wynonna feels a slight concern if her main suspicion is unfounded. She creeps up the staircase. "Hey, you guys still here?" 

She can barely see the door handle at the top of the staircase, but there's a faint glow coming out from underneath. Carefully turning the handle so as to not let it squeak, she pushes the door open and sticks her head in her sister's room. A candle flickers with the disturbance in the air, and her plan to be silent is thwarted by a squeaky door hinge instead. Her sister rouses from slumber, tucked under the arm of a partially-clothed Nicole. who has one bare leg sticking out from under the numerous covers.

"Hey, sis," Waverly says, and Nicole begins to wake, sleepily nuzzling into Waverly's neck as consciousness trickles in.

Wynonna crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, though positively brimming with pride. "Ugh. Fucking finally."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry so basic, just an idea that came to mind and I figured why the hell not write it.
> 
> Happy Holidays everyone, hope you liked it!
> 
> Come yell at me on twitter or insta @griddles83


End file.
